Osip Mandelstam: Mandelstam Street - poem

Mandelstam Street

What street is this?

Mandelstam Street.

What a devilish name!—

No matter which way you twist it,

It always sounds crooked, not straight.

He wasn’t very linear,

His manners weren’t lily-pure,

And that’s why this street,

Or, more precisely, this pit—

Goes by the name

Of that Mandelstam.

       (Osip Mandelstam, 1935)